Dick Tracy vs. Cueball

1946 "HE'S TERRIFIC! Your Favorite Crime Crusader!"
5.9| 1h2m| NR| en
Details

A police detective uses his girlfriend to track down a homicidal maniac.

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Reviews

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.
Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%
Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.
Brennan Camacho Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
arfdawg-1 Decent B picture.Was never a huge fan of Dick, but I have to say these RKO pictures are rather alluring.Surprised there weren't more.The Plot.Expensive diamonds are stolen. Before the thief can fence them he is strangled by ex-con Cueball. He then takes the gems and continues murdering people he believes are trying to swindle him. Dick Tracy allows his girlfriend Tess to act as a buyer for the gems but his plan backfires when she is captured by the homicidal Cueball.
ilprofessore-1 Aficionados of forgotten "B" Pictures should enjoy this one, which for some unaccountable reason is listed by Medved as one of the fifty worst films of all time. Photographed stylishly by George Diskant and directed imaginatively by the under-rated Gordon Douglas (who would go on to direct both Elvis and Sinatra) this film is far superior in look to many of the better known low-budget film noirs of the same period. RKO Studios spent a lot more money building sets and dressing them than did their B picture rivals. Douglas took advantage of the superior production values to invent some very unusual shots often using a subjective camera technique usually not associated with these programmers. Despite the wooden acting of Morgan Conway as Tracey, the cast includes some of Hollywood's best character actors, among them the eternally frowzy Esther Howard as the proprietress of the Dripping Dagger café; Ian Keith hamming it up delightfully as Vitamin Flintheart, and Jason Robards Sr., father of the great Eugene O'Neill actor, Jason Jr., briefly seen as the captain of the S.S. Palomar.
Hitchcoc I have to agree with one of the previous reviewers. The title character seems rather depressed and confused. He doesn't have that monomania that these super criminals should have. He doesn't understand the diamond business and is constantly being swayed by the ebb and flow of the other bad guys. The fact that he strangles on once in a while isn't immaterial, but he seems rather pathetic. I suppose a man with a shaved head at one time would have seemed rather threatening. By modern standards, he would go about unnoticed. I wonder if they stopped making these films because they didn't have the budget to do justice to the villains and make them more that what they are. It is a reasonably well paced little movie and manages pretty well. I can't remember if Tracy had any personality in the comic strip. He certainly has almost none here. There is a little comic relief with his idiot sidekick getting struck on the head. He has more concussions than Troy Aikman. How a guy like this would keep a job on the police department is beyond me. It's still fun and worth an hour.
Snow Leopard "Dick Tracy Vs. Cueball" does a fairly good job of creating a semi-comic book style "Tracy" atmosphere, but the story itself is largely routine. It moves fairly quickly, and has enough entertaining parts to keep your attention, but there's not really that much to the story.Tracy and assistant Pat Patton have to investigate a diamond theft and a murder connected to it. Morgan Conway makes a decent, if uninspired, Tracy, and things move along quickly most of the time. Most of the details and characters are reasonably Tracy-like. As the villain behind the crimes, though, "Cueball" is not much of a foe - while menacing, he's an unimaginative bumbler, and most of what happens is routine and somewhat predictable.Overall, the movie is a mostly average crime film of the era, worth watching for those who are fans.